HBO Max Swipes Hit Cable Show Ahead of Season 3

By Michael Hein

The DC FanDome virtual event was full of new material to anticipate, but it also came with a big announcement about an existing DC TV show: Pennyworth. Warner Bros. announced on Saturday that Pennyworth will return for a third season in 2022, and it will now be an HBO Max Original series. The show, which follows a young version of Batman's butler, Alfred Pennyworth, has aired on Epix up until now.

Pennyworth Season 3 will premiere sometime in 2022 as a Max Original, and the first two seasons will be streaming on HBO Max sometime early in the year as well. The exact dates have not been nailed down yet, and so far there are no teasers of what is coming. Still, many fans rejoiced at the news that this unlikely show was safe from cancellation, and many predicted that it would become more popular now that it will be on a more major streaming service.

Pennyworth premiered in July of 2019, and Season 2 followed in December of 2020. Both seasons had ten episodes each. The show stars Jack Bannon as Alfred, who is a former British Special Air Service soldier with intense training. The show begins in London, England where Alfred is working as a bouncer at an exclusive club while developing his skills into a full-blown security firm.

From the beginning, Alfred befriends Thomas Wayne - played by Ben Aldridge - who will eventually become Batman's father. In this story, Wayne is an undercover CIA informant, but he is also interested in hiring Alfred to come work with him back in Gotham City. Thomas Wayne is typically depicted as a doctor and a philanthropist in the comics, but here he is a forensic accountant as well.

The show has often been compared to Gotham, which told the story of a young Bruce Wayne long before he became Batman. Its frequent nods to the villains and canonical developments to come are mirrored here in Pennyworth, perhaps with a bit more subtlety.

Pennyworth's jump to HBO Max mirrors that of Warrior, a series that began on Cinemax and then jumped to HBO Max earlier this year. The show raised a similar uproar from fans, who felt that it was not getting the exposure it deserved on cable. As they predicted, the move to HBO Max helped raise its profile, so good things may be in store for Pennyworth.

The question is when the show will premiere, and when the previous seasons will be streaming. Other announcements from DC FanDome on Saturday included the release of The Batman trailer, The Flash teaser and plenty of other projects in between. Stay tuned for updates as they become available.

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